The Battle of Selvernos
by Whiskers10
Summary: At the end of the Clone Wars, the GAR is dispatched to reclaim the planet of Selvernos from CIS control.
1. Chapter 1

**Obligatory Disclaimer**: The Star Wars universe is not mine. Was there ever any real doubt?

**The Battle of Selvernos**

Part One

Day -15

A green _something_ moved in front of Sergeant Barrent's helmet display a little over a second after his feet touched ground in the heavy undergrowth of the thicket that his landing pack had dropped him down on. He swung his blaster rifle towards the movement, finger hovering over the trigger. If a hostile was in the area, his quick reflexes with a DC-17 would soon render them _unhostile_.

"Hold your fire, Sarge," an accented voice spoke through his helmet's comlink. "It's just me."

Barrent lowered his blaster rifle slightly, letting the muzzle of the weapon rest several centimeters away from his waist. "Blast it Ronet, you know how jumpy I get after I drop into a future combat zone."

"Thank the Force the brass doesn't," Ronet replied with a snicker as the clone emerged from the treeline several meters away. His bulky _Katarn_-class armor was painted green like all the other Republic commandos on this mission to help them blend into the heavily forested areas where their objective was located. "I hear they don't take kindly to a little bit of PTSD in their clones."

Barrent nodded, the heavily armored helmet he wore moving with him. "Where are the other two?" he asked, finally letting his blaster rifle drop to beside his right leg. His boots crushed through the underbrush as the sergeant made his way towards the other commando. Like most of his kind, Barrent's squad consisted of four heavily trained and almost equally heavily armed clones.

"Mill touched down first," Ronet replied before pointing behind him. "He's out doing his thing; about a kilo ahead is what he told me."

"What about Essex?" Barrent asked, wondering where his pod's demolitions expert was located.

"Right behind you, Sarge," another voice said through his comlink; the accent just different enough from Barrent's and Ronet's to be distinguishable. Those that hadn't spent a lot of time around the clones in the Grand Army frequently found the accent to be the same. Most of the clones and some military personnel knew better.

Barrent suppressed the urge to turn around and throw his gauntleted fist into the chest plate of Essex as the clone walked past him and gathered around his two squadmates. Sometimes he swore that they snuck up behind him just to be annoying.

"We can't stay here for long," he finally said, getting back to the business at hand. "Those Seps may have seen us jet down here and we can't just wait for them to arrive and put holes in us." He motioned to the west, an area with especially thick trees. "We head that way, Dorn-Three on our tac-maps," he added for the benefit of the squad's scout.

Two hours later another figure clad in green armor walked into the temporary command center set up by his comrades. He passed a perimeter fence made up of empty durasteel crates, all the vital equipment stored in them already emptied. "Sergeant," he reported in as he passed the makeshift perimeter. He slowly walked to the center of the camp where the three other members of his squad sat in specially made chairs. "I did a sweep a kilometer in all directions of our LZ. No Separatist activity in that zone. Just like Intel reported."

"Good to hear," Barrent said before taking his helmet off. The tanned face that originally belonged to a bounty hunter named Jango Fett could only be described as different than that of his genetic sire. A multitude of good luck had left his face amazingly unscarred. "I know that a lot of this is going to sound like old news. That's because—for the most part—that it is. I just want to run through the mission one more time now that we've actually landed."

"Not much has changed has it?" Mill asked.

"No, none at all," Barrent said, wiping the sweat off of his brow. "While you were scouting, I got a confirmation message from Panin and his team. They've landed at their LZ with no incident, just like us."

"Good to hear," Essex said. "Destroying that Sep facility would be very difficult without the second team."

"We pack up our kit after nightfall and start making our way to the facility. If we stick to walking during the night, we should get there in two days." Barrent turned to Mill. "What's the space report?"

"According to the data I have," the still-helmeted scout of the squad reported, "we've got double news for the next two nights."

"So we've got the cover of darkness for our trek at least," Barrent responded with a smile. "How long's it going to stay that way?"

"The first moon will begin to wax in three days. We should have enough darkness to travel safely for at least eight days. The two moons will be full in 22."

"Hopefully in 22 we're off this world and taking some much needed R&R."

Hours passed after the tactical meeting and day soon turned into night. Two round disks of blackness began their slow journey through the starry sky of the planet. Barrent watched as the two new moons poked out of the treeline and then rose from his seat. "All right men, let's get out of here." Barrent picked up the DC-17 blaster rifle that was standard issue for commandos and waited while the rest of his squad assembled their gear. Essex secured several detonation charges into a satchel, packing enough explosive material to level two bases. Mill ran his three seeker droids through a self-diagnostic check before placing them securely on his belt. Ronet simply removed the sniper attachment from his kit trunk and attached it to his blaster rifle. A few careful examinations of the rifle followed, Ronet making sure that the connections were secure and that the sight was calibrated properly. Within one minute the entirety of the crew was ready.

Day -13

"News from the other squad, Sarge," Ronet said as the sniper silently hunched beside his commanding officer. Night had fallen just two hours previously—one hour after the commandos had reached their current position. "They've reached their positions as well."

Sergeant Barrent looked at the Separatist facility through his electrobinoculars, the darkness surrounding it visually enhanced by the device. Several bright spotlights were mounted at various points on the facility surveyed the surroundings, focusing on the open field that spanned about two sports fields in radius. The light wasn't focused on the clearing, however, as ever once and a while the searchlights scanned the tree line.

The clones stood up from their prone position as the searchlight passed them over. Barrent put his binoculars away and gripped his blaster rifle in hand. "All right men, from my analysis of the search pattern we should probably head towards the wall in 85 seconds. After that we should…" Blaster fire interrupted the rest of his orders as it rang out from the opposite side of the facility. The distinctive sounds of both the Baktoid-produced blaster rifles wielded by the CIS droids as well as those from a DC-17 were recognizable, showing that a full fledged firefight was under way.

"Get to the wall!" Barrent ordered, causing the three other members in his squad to break out into a run towards the main wall of the facility. He hoped that under the cover of the firefight going on at the other side of the Separatist facility that his team would be able to infiltrate the building as originally planned and destroy the manufacturing devices within. The fact that clone commando squads typically worked alone hopefully worked for them as a secondary team wouldn't be expected.

One of his commandos tripped as they raced across the field, the bright white searchlight shining on top of his green armor. The guns opened up soon afterward.


	2. Part Two

Coruscant, Approximately a week prior to the end of the Clone Wars

_Coruscant, Approximately a week prior to the end of the Clone Wars._

The LAAT flew noisily towards one of the most heavily populated areas of the Galactic Republic's capital planet, the repulsorlifts and engines emitting what the pilot of the craft could only describe as a "throbbing whine." That noise had many different interpretations to those who heard it: to the clone troopers who used the craft as a transport, it was a sound of hope when they were on the ground. Help was coming. To the enemies, it usually signaled their doom. Or at least the pilot liked to think so.

"Target E.T.A. in four minutes," the pilot said to the troops secured in the back of the transport. His brothers. "Prepare for a combat landing."

Clone trooper CT-8584—known to his brothers and the Republic Navy personnel that cared for clone troopers as Trem—quickly glanced over his platoon, inspecting each and every one of them as swiftly and efficiently as he could. He didn't have the luxury of the time to do as thorough of a search as he would have liked, but every member of his platoon appeared to be ready. They clutched their DC-15 rifles close to their recently upgraded armor, each one ready to fight despite the nervousness that Trem knew that they must be feeling. They had to be slightly nervous; he was.

Trem held on to the netting that laced the top of the transport, his right hand clutching a blaster carbine tightly. The LAAT rocked slightly as it soared through the sky, dodging flak bursts from Separatist ground positions and returning fire. Trem looked towards the horizon of Coruscant through the open doors, temporarily turning off his helmet's HUD so he could see the sights unamplified.

The scenes were something out of a horror holo, he thought, going on an adage that he had heard from a Jedi General one time. Coruscant was burning. It wasn't a single skyscraper being caught up in flames caused by some careless person or faulty energy wiring, though, it seemed to be the entire planet. Entire buildings had been demolished as a starfighter that had been shot down crashed into it. Another had been hit by laser cannons as droid and clone piloted fighters fought their way over and around the massive city. Entire walkways had been demolished, their ruins now smoldering kilometers below. The ones that still standing had become battle grounds for his brothers and the droid invaders.

"One minute, now," the droid pilot warned the platoon, causing Trem to switch his HUD back on. Blaster fire could be heard now, soft against the roar of the engines, but threatening nonetheless. The walkway that was their landing zone now grew in size as the LAAT dropped in altitude. The transport's guns fired, blanketing the droid filled plaza with laser fire. Small arms fire arced towards the LAAT, the majority of it hitting the LAAT for only cosmetic damage.

"Thirty seconds!"

The troopers rose out of their seats and grabbed a hold of the netting, each one instantly recalling their training when it came to landing under fire. The LAAT's guns fired again, clearing as much of the enemy out as they could. It wasn't long before the transport hovered a meter above the ground, the pilot loudly alerting his passengers that the time to disembark was now.

"Go! Go! Go!" Trem cried out as he leapt down from the transport via the open sides, his fellow troops following shortly. The battle droids bunkered down in the plaza opened fire on the clones. One clone trooper fell immediately, Trem watching as a blaster bolt struck the unlucky clone in the chest. One step, he thought as he raised his carbine up to return fire. One single step and it would have been him that would have fallen instead of Ohhm.

He charged towards the enemy position with his platoon, hoping that they would reach the cover of an upraised garden that the walking pedestrians had found beautiful in the past. The trees and plants there would never be looked at in the same way again. Blaster fire and laser cannon impacts had torn them beyond recognition; burning them so that the smoke drifted into the sky. Trem saw a skinny battle droid—one of the B1 models—fall under his blaster fire, the head popping off and clunking to the ground as a bolt obliterated the thin neck. Precise shots from himself and the soldiers under his command took out four more of them before the platoon reached their much needed cover.

The LAAT that brought them to the battle field lifted off almost as soon as it had landed, the engines of the craft melding into the sounds of combat before eventually dimming as it sped away. Trem fired an unaimed volley towards the general direction of the droids while motioning for a sergeant to come his way. "Sergeant Emren," he said as the non-commissioned officer slowly made his way towards Trem's position, "do you see that stairwell beside the uprising to the left?" he asked.

Emren reviewed the combat footage inside of his helmet for a few seconds before finally replying. "Yes, sir!"

Trem looked at the sergeant's helmet, a large carbon mark on the top right side was the scar of Emren's brush with death a month ago when a droideka nearly took his head off. A fortunate duck saved the clone sergeant's life then. "Take your squad and secure that upraised area. Use it to rain blaster fire and blaster cannon shots down upon them."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant replied before rounding up the other nine soldiers in his squad. Trem didn't really know if the task he had given Besh Squadron would be able to be fulfilled, but he had sent the them anyway. He couldn't waste an entire half of his command on this movement by sending in one additional squad.

"Cover 'em, men!" he ordered the rest of his platoon, the 25 other soldiers instantly moving out of their own cover and fired several volleys towards the Separatist position. There were about a 60 of them, he guessed, counting down to 58 as he saw two super battle droids fall under a barrage of blue fire. From his vantage point, he could see that about half of the droid force consisted of the super battle droid variety, a more superior—and expensive—version of the battle droids that became so infamous around the Battle of Naboo. Thankfully, he thought as he caused a battle droid to explode from a shot to the chest, there were no destroyer droids deployed in this section of the battle, yet. He commed in to his company's temporary command center, though, requesting deployment of Alpha-09, the resident ARC trooper, just in case things got too heavy.

"Quickly, now!" Emren called out to his troops as they raced through the open courtyard. A small bit of concentrated blaster fire sprayed the area, sending chips and chunks of duracrete flying into the air as they hit the ground. The once nice-looking staircase loomed up ahead, now within several meters of the troopers. One of the soldiers raised his rifle and squeezed off shot of return fire towards the droids. It slowed him down, just enough for a surprisingly well-aimed blaster shot to take him down.

"Keep moving!" Emren yelled despite the comlinks inside of his helmet. That clone trooper had been new to his squad, a recent edition after another member of their ranks had fallen recently. Emren hadn't even gotten around to knowing his name, or even his registration number.

He reached the stairway and began to run up it, skipping every other step on the way. His troops followed, their rifles raised for the possibility that the enemy would attack them on their way up. A single B1 battle droid appeared at the top base of the stairway as they reached a quarter of the way up it. The droid yelped in surprise and then fell back. Halfway up the stairs, three more of them appeared, their small blaster rifles aimed towards the squad.

Emren squeezed off a single shot towards the droid in the middle and watched as the bolt removed the top half of the droid's head. The other two fell thanks to well-placed shots from two other clone troopers. Emren reached the top of the stairs and instantly somersaulted to avoid the fire from battle droids stationed there. Emren raised his rifle and fired twice, hitting a single super battle droid in its thick, grey chest. The droid staggered backwards for a second before lowering its blaster-laden right wrist towards Emren. A blaster shot from another clone hit the center of the droid's chest, finally deactivating it.

Emren threw a frag grenade towards the center of the droids' formation, watching as another one of the B1 battle droids fell. A blaster shot glanced off of the side of his armor, burning a patch of the teal stripe that signified his status as a member of the 135th Legion off. He fired his rifle, hitting and "wounding" a super battle droid. He dived for cover as the grenade went off, the explosion sending several tiny pieces of shrapnel headed away from the center of the blast. The ten remaining droids on the start of the walkway were shredded by the shrapnel, their own parts joining it as it continued to spread.

The sergeant cried out in pain as he felt metal shards penetrate the armor on his right leg and dig into his shin. Corporal Tann rushed towards the sergeant, traveling as fast as he could. "Take those droids out, Private," he ordered the trooper carrying the blaster cannon. "How are you doing, Sgt. Emren?" he asked, looking at the punctured and bloody leg plate. He quickly removed the damaged piece of armor and tossed it aside, pulling the small medkit he carried on the back of his belt off. It wasn't as well stocked as the platoon's regular medic's was, but it would do until the skirmish was over, he thought.

Tann worked quickly to remove un-soaked gauze from the medkit, swiftly wrapping it around the wound. He needed to stop the blood flow. The heavy thumps of blaster cannon fire came from nearby as the soldiers under his temporary command opened fire on the droids from their elevated position. The droids surviving the initial attacks futily attempted to return fire, but were cut off by the rest of the platoon charging their position. Almost as soon as it had started, this small part of the larger battle had come to a close.

Trem walked through the liberated plaza, looking over the wounded and the very few dead. Only three of his soldiers had been killed in the small piece of action, but each one was a valuable comrade and friend to Trem. "How is he, Mead?" he asked the platoon's medic as he reached the highest ranking wounded.

"He's going to be fine," the medic replied as changed Sgt. Emren's blood-soaked bandage. About an hour of surgery back at a mobile, and a day or two in a bacta cast and he'll be fine." Mead dropped the used gauze onto the duracrete ground of the plaza before finally standing up. "The shrapnel didn't even go very deep."

"I've called for a LAAT to evac the wounded," Trem replied. "Hopefully they're here soon."

Mead paused for a second. "We're moving out soon?" the medic asked.

Trem nodded. "We're to rejoin with the rest of Cresh Company and accompany Commander Hal and General Fionst," he replied. "I've got word that the Seps have just abducted the Chancellor. Several units have been ordered to rush towards the likely extraction site, us included."

The chopping sound of a LAAT incoming broke the conversation. "Speak of the Sith," Mead said, smiling under his helmet.

Trem used his eyes to adjust his in-helmet comlink, setting it to broadcast to all of the soldiers in his platoon. "Prepare for immediate redeployment, boys," he said. The clone troopers speedily picked up their equipment—some returned their helmets to their heads after speaking with wounded comrades—and then stood ready.


End file.
